Preludes
by soultaker78
Summary: Apple engages in a strange pastime with Briar while Raven attempts to emulate a breed of Japanese super hero and starts to make a new friend. Things get stranger from there. Warnings for OCs and weirdness.
1. Chapter 1

Author's notes: this takes place before Legacy Day and will be AU in some small areas that will become apparent later.

...

Classes had ended for the day. Briar was to engage in an usual past time of hers. Occasionally, she met up at the coffee shop in town for a verbal sparring session of sorts with a supremely unpleasant person. Apple decided that she would go Briar this time.

The two princesses arrived outside the coffee shop where the person Briar was going to meet was waiting for them. He was a slim white guy with messy brown hair wearing a baggy, dark green shirt and khakis. His name was Evan Chanter, son of the enchantress from Beauty and the Beast. He was a first year student and in a few short weeks, he had already established a reputation as the biggest asshole in all of Ever After High.

"Briar," Evan greeted with clearly faked cheerfulness. He'd been hexted in advance about Apple joining them so he wasn't surprised to see her there.

"Evan," Briar said with contained disdain. With that out of the way, the three fairy-teens went into the coffee shop. Apple and Briar placed their orders but when it was Evan's turn, he said he'd have the usual and then teleported a syringe into his hand.

"What's that for?" Apple asked worriedly.

"I like my lattes with a shot of virgin's blood," Evan explained. "Patricia here is okay with it: right Patricia?"

"I am," the woman at the counter said. "But I had a bad bicycle accident the other day, so I might not be a virgin anymore."

"Have you engaged in penal/vaginal intercourse with a man?" Evan asked and Patricia shook her head no. "Then you're still a virgin."

Patricia rolled up her sleeve and Evan inserted the needle, drawing out some of her blood.

"He tips generously for this if you were wondering," Briar said to Apple.

"And Patricia," Evan began, "uses my tips to help put food on the table for her sister's little bastard."

"Now that was just uncalled for," Apple said disapprovingly.

"Actually," Patricia spoke up, "my sister did have her kid outside wedlock, so that statement is technically true."

Evan turned to both girls and gave them a very smug grin.

"That smirk makes your face look very punchable," Briar said. The three of them sat down at a table while they waited for their orders.

"So I see that you have a new accessory," Briar said to Evan.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Evan said flatly.

"I'm talking about that headband you're trying to hide under your hair," Briar said and then turned to Apple. "Evan has several magic-boosting items on him that he tries to hide under his clothes. A little game we have is where I try to find the item and guess it's effect." she then turned to Evan. "Since it's near your brain, it probably boosts some kind of psychic ability. I know it's not telekinesis because that's a very basic magic ability that no one would waste the time building a booster artifact for. I know it's not telepathy because you'd respond to what I'm thinking of right now," Briar said as she pictured being inside the girl's locker room after grimnastics, "and I know it's not hypnosis because you'd have used it to make me shut up by now. So I'm guessing that it protects your mind from people trying to read or control it because like all huge assholes, you want to be sure no one tries to get back at you."

"Very astute, Briar," Evan said as he moved his bangs aside and revealed that he was wearing a thin headband with a small, teal jewel next to his forehead. "And absolutely correct: apparently, you're not the empty-headed party-girl I keep telling people you are."

"Like anyone listens to you anyway," Briar shot back.

"You still haven't figured out what the penis ring is for yet," Evan said.

"ummmm," Apple muttered.

"I don't know for sure that he actually has a penis ring," Briar clarified. "I suspect he's hiding a magical artifact there because no one would want to check there: especially girls."

Ouch, Evan thought, more impressed than angry at Briar's zing. Although he was still pretty angry: he was thinking of telling Briar that when she started her one hundred year sleep, he was going to put her hand in a glass of cold water so that she pissed herself off and on for the entire time but that would spoil the surprise. Truth was, he didn't have a penis ring as a magical artifact: he let Briar thing that because it misdirected her from the toe ring he had that boosted his teleporting ability.

Patricia let them know that their lattes were ready and they went to grab them. Evan emptied stirred in the contents of his syringe and they sat back down. They sipped on their drinks for a while before Evan spoke up.

"So Apple," Evan said, "I hear your rooming with Raven Queen this year."

"That's right," Apple admitted.

"Hoping to make her embrace evil?" Evan asked and Apple nodded yes. "Good luck with that. She has a great deal of magical potential that she is squandering by refusing to accept her destiny: it's pathetic. Scratch that: she's pathetic."

I'm starting to see why Briar goes to these get-togethers, Apple thought. Any shot of bursting his bubble is a worthwhile endeavor.

In truth, Evan had more reason to be resentful of Raven aside from him being an asshole (although that was a big part of it). If one were to rate their inner reserves of magical energy on a scale from one to ten, Evan would be a five and Raven would be more of an eight.

"Can you imagine what I could do if I had her level of magical power to work with?" Evan continued.

"Knowing you," Briar began, "you'd use it to torment people for your own twisted and petty amusement: like you do now, only bigger."

"You know me so well," Evan said with a wide grin.

"Speaking of you being a sadistic psycho," Briar continued, "I know it was you who gave Duchess Swan dysentery."

"That's one way to look it: another is that I helped her loose three pounds," Evan admitted with yet another evil grin.

"You've been going after her a lot lately," Briar said. In addition to giving Duchess dysentery, Evan had also spelled her hair to move on it's own and spank her for five minutes, made her break out in hives, and put a spring-loaded mechanism in her locker that shot a pie into her face when she opened it and that was all just in the past ten days. "Any reason?"

"I want to get people to like me by going after someone who's also widely disliked," Evan said.

"So not buying it," Briar said. "For one thing, between you and Duchess, pretty much everyone would say that she's the lesser of two evils. Also, you like people thinking of you as an asshole who will do terrible things for little to no reason."

"It is my destiny," Evan said with a prideful smirk. Indeed, Evan was looking forward to his assigned role because it involved being a huge asshole. It also helped that unlike many evil-doers, his fate would involve dying or spending the rest of life in a dungeon.

"Anyway," Briar continued, "I figure that you have a reason for going after Duchess as much and I think it involves a girl. Duchess has made fun of or done something to this girl and you're targeting Duchess to try to win her over. This works very well for you because it involves being a huge asshole in an attempt to get laid."

"Damn you're good," Evan said with a hint of admiration (although he would deny that to his dying breath). "You are correct: I'm trying to win over a girl by getting revenge on her behalf. And if you're so smart, why don't you tell me who this girl is?"

"I haven't gotten that far yet," Briar said. There was silence for a while as she tried to deduce who the mystery girl might be.

"Well, we know it's someone Duchess has picked on," Apple said in an attempt to be helpful.

"It could be anybody," Briar said as she put her hand on her forehead. She removed her hand and had a determined expression on her face. "I am going to figure out who this girl you like is: I just need more time and more information."

"Of course you do," Evan said condescendingly. The three of them made idle chit-chat for a while as they finished their lattes

…

Apple returned to her dorm room and was about to enter when she heard Raven shouting.

"It worked!" Raven shouted. "I finally did something with my magic that worked!" Apple opened the door and entered. "Oh, hey Apple," Raven said sheepishly as she ceased her jubilation.

"Hey Raven," Apple said. "What worked?"

"A little experiment with my magic."

"Does this have anything to do with the belt?"

"What belt?"

"The belt you are currently wearing," Apple said as she looked at the object in question. It was a large, silver belt with vertical feather designs at a vertical angle. There was a large, circular buckle with a purple stone in the center that was slightly lower than the straps.

"This has to do the those bug guys you watch through the mirror, doesn't it?" Apple asked.

"They don't all look like bugs," Raven shot back. "Furthermore, I have no idea what you're talking about." Raven then realized what she had just said and put her hand on her forehead. "I have got to be a close second for worst liar in this school next to Cedar."

The 'bug guys' Apple was referring to were a breed of warriors known as Kamen Riders. One day, Raven had been using her magic mirror to look for interesting stories to watch. She came across the many Kamen Riders that were scattered across several worlds and been using her mirror to watch abridged versions of their exploits. Fortunately for Raven, the mirror provided subtitles to go along with her viewing which was good, because all the Riders were Japanese.

"I can explain," Raven continued. "As an experiment, I decided to see if I could give myself rider powers. I focused on how I wanted one of their armors to protect myself from anyone who might want to hurt me while I called upon the largest amount of my magic I've ever mustered before. And it worked: assuming the belt does what I intended it to do, I can put most of my magic into it to conjure a suit without dealing with the usual restrictions of how I can usually use my magic when being evil."

Apple stood in silence as she tried to take this all in while Raven grabbed a round bottle and drank its contents. The bottle contained a potion that replenished the magical energy of those who drank it. Raven had just used most of her magic and didn't want to wait for it to recharge on it's own for what she wanted to do next.

"You can transform like they can?" Apple asked.

"Don't know: Let's find out right now," Raven said with a grin that would have made Kitty proud. She put her right hand next to her left shoulder, her hand glowing as Raven called upon all the magic she had left.

"Henshin!" Raven yelled out the traditional battle cry that the Kamen Riders used before transforming as she put her magic into the belt buckle. A flash of black light covered Raven and quickly disappeared. "Wooooh! What a rush."

As Raven enjoyed the surge of power that overcame her, she turned towards her mirror and saw what her rider armor looked like. It was black with silver lines on her chest, arms and legs that had small feather designs on them. She had the traditional Kamen Rider 'bug eyes', except hers were glowing purple.

"Hexellent," Raven said in a hushed tone as she looked at herself as a Kamen Rider.

"Raven, why do you want to do this?" Apple asked.

"Because I have something in common with the Kamen Riders," Raven said. "I am familiar with the stories of many riders and there's one pattern that repeats even though it manifests in different ways. Whether the rider is experimented on by an evil organization that he rebels against, or he uses armor that was made by the bad guys, or uses the power of monsters contained within cards or coins, the source of their power is usually tied to that of the monsters each one fights. And yet, that doesn't keep them from being heroes. That ability to do great good with powers born of great evil is…. inspiring."

 _I don't like where this is going,_ Apple thought. All this talk about doing good and rebelling against organizations was making Apple think that Raven was getting very serious about not following her destiny.

"What are you planning to do with this new armor?" Apple asked nervously.

"I haven't thought that far ahead," Raven said. "I tried to give myself rider abilities mostly to see if I could. Now that I have, I don't know what I'll do next."

 _Good,_ Apple thought.

"So if these people are called Kamen Riders," Apple said, "what do they ride?"

"They ride these things called motorcycles," Raven began explaining, "that are like huge bicycles that run very fast and move without pedaling."

"So they're magic."

"No: I asked Cupid about this because she came from a world with motorcycles and according to her, they run on something called gasoline which is the liquefied remains of animals that have been dead for millions of years."

There was a pause as Apple processed this.

"That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard," Apple said.

"I know," Raven admitted. "Cupid admitted that she didn't really understand how they worked, so she probably got that part wrong. I'm not planning to use one of those anyway since I already have a horse."

"Oh," Apple said, feeling uneasy again. "You're talking about that demon horse thing, aren't you?"

"Her name is Demona," Raven said. They were talking about the animal companion Raven had received. Demona was from one of the infernal plains and Raven could summon her whenever she wanted to do. Raven had summoned her several times since getting here but hadn't yet been brave enough to attempt to ride Demona. "And with the enhanced strength and protection of this armor, I am confident that I can deal with her now."

"I hope you deal with her better than Professor Papa Bear," Apple said, remembering Demona trying to pick a fight with him after the first time she was summoned. Fortunatly, Raven found out that she could call on and send back Demona with her magic before anything too serious happened.

"I'm sure I can," Raven said. She then noticed that the stone on her belt was glowing. She brought her right hand next to it and in a flash of black light, a guitar appeared with Raven holding the neck and the rest leaning on the floor. She picked up the guitar to get a closer look at it and noticed that it had a purple strap and an axe-blade on the side of the body. She grabbed the guitar by the neck and gave it a few practice swings.

"And I thought calling a guitar an axe was just an expression," Apple said as she saw the new object. "What is that thing anyway?"

"I'm not really sure," Raven said. "My best guess is that as a side-effect of giving myself rider powers, I created a new weapon to go with the armor." She put the guitar's strap over her shoulder and plucked a few strings. She was very happy to hear that the guitar was able to produce its own electric sound without an amplifier. "This whole thing just got like…. %300 more awesome!" Raven shouted as she held the guitar over her head.

Apple was feeling better about this now. Judging from Raven's enthusiasm and her statements from earlier, she didn't really have a plan and was acting on simple fangirlism.

 _Besides,_ Apple thought, _she hasn't been this hexicted about anything in like… ever. It's refreshing to see her so happy, even if I can't see it on her face._

"This has all been very… strange, Raven," Apple said, "but do you think change out of that suit now?"

"Okay," Raven said. She just stood there for a while as an awkward silence filled the room.

"Well."

"I will change out of this armor, just as soon as I figure out how."

Raven's first attempt to make the armor go away by thinking about it didn't work and she was starting to worry.

 _This is bad,_ Raven said as she began shaking and panting a bit.

"What am I gonna do if I have to go to the bathroom in this thing?" Raven asked in panic. Apple decided to get Raven's attention by somewhat lightly hitting her in the head with a book.

"Panicking never solved anything," Apple said. "Let's try being solution oriented.

"Did you just whack me with your Princessology book?" Raven asked.

"It wasn't that hard. Besides, you're wearing a helmet," Apple said in her defense. Raven decided to heed Apple's advice, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "See? Much better."

Raven didn't know what Apple meant until she looked down and saw that her armor and guitar/ax had been dispelled by another flash of black light (although Raven hadn't seen that because her eyes were closed).

Raven was still smiling as she processed everything. In addition to now being a rider herself (or very close to one), she had found a way to tap into most of her magic without being evil. Raven checked the time: it was almost six, which meant the castleteria would start serving dinner soon.

"I'm gonna grab a quick bite then go into the woods to practice my new abilities somewhere with more open space and less breakable objects," Raven said as she walked towards the door. "I should be back by light's out. Or not: I have no idea."

And with that, Raven closed the door behind her. Apple still wasn't quite sure what to make of this. All she knew for certain was that she hoped tomorrow would be less weird.

…..

Author's notes: Demona the demon horse is replacing Raven's pet dragon Nevermore from the books because I've had this idea since before I found out about Nevermore.

Lastly, Kamen means masked and Henshin mean transform or transformation. I promise, there won't be much more gratuitous Japanese beyond that.


	2. Chapter 2

It had been two days since what Apple had come to call the weirdest day of her life. Aside from Raven going into the woods to practice to attempt to tame her horse Demona, not much had happened since then. That was about to change.

Classes had ended for the day. Raven had gone back to her dorm room because Apple had told her that she had something she wanted to talk about. A few minutes later, Apple came into the room with someone Raven had never seen before.

This new person was an Asian girl about Raven and Apple's age. She had black hair done up in a decorative bun with gold accessories and white makeup over her face. She was wearing a brightly colored kimono with a sun on the front and surrounded by blue.

"Hello," the Asian girl said as she bowed to Raven. "I am Princess Michigo, daughter of Himiko, shaman queen of Yamatai island."

"Domo," Raven said as she returned Michigo's bow.

"You know Japanese?"

"A little. It's a long story. We can go over it after Apple explains why I needed to meet you."

"Michigo told me that she wanted to talk to you about something," Apple explained. "She wouldn't say what though."

"How do you two know each other?" Raven asked. She knew enough about Apple to know that Michigo was not in her normal circle of friends and really wanted to know how she came to know a Japanese princess.

"I've been spending a lot of time with her roommate, Finelope," Apple explained.

"The far-from-Little Mermaid?" Raven asked, using a mean-spirited nickname that had spread due to Finelope's weight and instantly regretting it. "Sorry about that."

"It's not your fault," Michigo said. "Duchess Swan really outdid herself coming up with a nickname that's accurate, catchy and cruel. But yes, she is my roommate and Apple has been generous enough to tutor her in royal etiquette."

"It hasn't been easy," Apple said. "She's learned a lot about how to act when on her best behavior, but it would really help if she took up some more princessly pastimes instead of burger scarfing and arm wrestling."

"She shouldn't do that," Raven said. "I've seen her trounce lots of the guys at both those things: she should stick to what she's good at."

"And cut her some slack," Michigo said to Apple. "She only became a princess about ten months ago."

"What?" Raven asked. She had never met Finelope personally but knew a little about her. She knew that Finelope was the neice of the Little Mermaid because the Little Mermaid story has a problem: sometimes, the Aerials have trouble winning over their princes and turn to sea foam. The last Aerial, Finelope's aunt, died as well which made her the third of the last eight to do so. But Raven didn't know anything about her only recently becoming a princess. "Can you explain that to me?"

"Finelope's family situation is complicated," Apple began. "Her mother was disowned from the undersea royal family because she choose to marry a kelp farmer she had fallen in love with, so Finelope grew up not knowing that she was of royal blood. Due to various circumstances, Finelope's grandfather, the sea king, had no children capable of siring future heirs. He then remembered that he had a disowned daughter with a hopefully functional reproductive system. So he reached out with an offer: she would be brought back into the royal family if she agreed to give birth to some future heirs. She agreed and that's how Finelope became a princess."

"He could do that?" Raven asked. "Just un-disown his daughter?"

"He's a king: he can do many things," Michigo said.

"As for Finelope herself," Apple continued, "she was chosen to carry on the Little Mermaid story. Normally, future Aerials don't go to Ever After High but it was decided that Finelope would in the hopes that preparation for her story might save her from 'the family curse'."

"Now that we've got that out of the way," Michigo said, "I need to discuss matters with Raven. If you could give us some privacy, Apple."

"Okay," Apple said and left the room. She knew that she was only supposed to make introductions between Michigo and Raven and didn't mind leaving them to talk about stuff by themselves.

"I would like your help with something," Michigo said. "Finelope is currently in a secret relationship with Evan Chanter."

"Oh, that asshole," Raven said, instantly understanding why Michigo was against them being together. "What did he do this time?"

"Nothing yet," Michigo said. "But I know he's taking advantage of how Finelope doesn't get a lot of attention from boys between her physique and generally crass attitude. I've tried to warn Finelope about him but he has won her over with offerings of gifts, treats and revenge pranks against Duchess Swan."

 _Damn_ , Raven thought, understanding why Finelope would return his feelings. _If I got that kind of attention from a guy, I wouldn't care what kind of reputation he had either._

"And I'm going to you with this," Michigo continued, "because the way I see it, who better to help me with the offspring of an evil sorceress than the offspring of another evil sorceress?"

"And while I am very interested in helping you get revenge against him," Raven said, "I have a little problem with that. I don't know how things are done where you come from but around here, it's traditional for the punishment to come after the crime."

"But I don't want to wait that long," Michigo explained. "He's insane."

"He's not insane," Raven began. "He's a petty, sadistic asshole who likes doing horrible things to people because he thinks it's funny." Michigo glared at Raven with an expression that expression that screamed 'are you serious'. "Okay, so he's a little insane. But there's a chance he has nothing diabolical planned with Finelope and has shown an interest in her because due to his reputation, she's within his league."

"But as you yourself just admitted, he is a petty, sadistic asshole."

"True, and if he does anything to hurt Finelope, I will help you get revenge on him but not before that."

Michigo thought over her options. Finelope did seem happy with Evan and moving on Evan before he did anything could easily strain their friendship.

"All right," Michigo said. "I can count on your help if Evan does anything bad to Finelope?"

"Absolutely," Raven said as she extended her hand and Michigo grabbed it, both girls shaking to seal the deal. "Now that I've agreed to help you, maybe you can help me with something."

"Of course," Michigo said. She knew that going to Raven would likely lead to some sort of 'you scratch my back, I scratch your's' arrangement and was willing to return the favor for Raven's pledge of assistance against Evan.

"Do you know anyone who can teach me how to fight?" Raven asked.

"I know of someone," Michigo said. "There's a butcher shop in the small Asian district of Book End run by a man named Woo. I apologize in advance for him calling you a cock-sucker."

"How do you know he's gonna call me that?"

"He calls everyone a cock-sucker: it was the first word he learned of the very little english he knows. More importantly, there is a private gym in the back that belongs to a friend of mine. She will teach you what she knows of combat after I've told her and Mr. Woo that you're coming." Michigo then went over to Raven's desk and wrote out a message in Chinese characters. "Give this to Mr. Woo and be there in one hour."

"Sounds good," Raven said and Michigo left the room.

Raven did some thronework for the next 40 minutes and then made her way to the stables the school had to house the horses the heroes learned riding on. No one was around right now, which was great for what Raven had in mind. She concentrated on what she wanted to happen and a black portal with fiery edges appeared on the ground. A horse jumped out of the portal that had a coat as black as night and fiery, red eyes. The horse had a saddle on its back that had materialized when it crossed the portal. This was Raven's animal companion, the hellsteed mare Demona. Raven hopped on and rode into Book End.

Raven stuck to the edge of the village and came near the butcher shop Michigo had told her about. She dismounted from Demona and summoned the portal to the infernal plain Demona usually stayed in. Demona jumped into the portal and it closed behind her. Raven went into Woo's butcher shop and saw the owner: a middle-aged, somewhat heavy set Asain man with a beard.

"How may I help you, cock sucker?" Mr. Woo asked in heavily-accented English.

 _Michigo wasn't kidding_ , Raven thought.

"Michigo sent me," Raven said as she went up to Woo and handed him the piece of Paper Michigo had given her. Mr. Woo motioned his head to a door on his left.

"Thank you," Raven said (even though she doubted Mr. Woo understood what she had said) and went through the door. She entered a large wooden room that had a lot of open space and various pieces of workout equipment and weapons against the wall. In the center of the room was a teenaged Asain girl practicing with a short sword. The girl had short, black hair and was wearing beige shorts and a green, buttoned shirt.

"Hello," Raven said, getting her attention.

"Hello," the girl responded and walked up to Raven. Now that she had a closer look, Raven could see that this was the most muscular girl she had ever seen. She arms and legs were far from huge but were some very firm and defined muscles there.

"Like what you see?" the girl asked as she flexed her right arm and made an impressive bicep pop up.

"Let's just say I'm impressed," Raven said. "I'm Raven, by the way," she said as she held out her hand.

"Michigo told me about you. I'm Meiling," the girl said as she moved her sword to her left hand and shook Raven's with her right. Raven took a closer look at Meiling's face.

"Is there something on my face?" Meiling asked.

"No," Raven said. "You just look a lot like Michigo. Without that white makeup of hers, you two could be twins."

"We get that a lot," Meiling said. "It's probably because all Asian people look a like."

"Yeah," Raven said, accepting that explanation. "What is this place?" Raven asked as she looked around.

"This is a dojo," Meiling said. "My uncle, who you met earlier - sorry about him calling you a cock sucker - had it built as part of his butcher shop when the shop was built. The Asian community here in Book End use it sometimes for group tai-chi, but it's mostly me in here when I'm not helping my uncle with the shop."

"You must enjoy having this all to yourself," Raven said. "I can tell that you're a serious fitness nut."

"Indeed," Meiling admitted. "I practice with these weapons as a way of staying in shape, but I know enough about combat to teach you a few things. Although you have picked a very poor outfit to work out in."

"Just give me a second to change," Raven grinned at how literal her statement was as she summoned her transformation belt (which she had dubbed the nocturnal driver, in line with what some or the Kamen Rider's belts were called) and conjured a large portion of her magic into her right hand. "Henshin," Raven said as she put her magic into the belt and changed into Kamen Rider Nocturnal.

"Michigo did not mention that," Meling said as she took in Raven's armor. "Fairy nice."

"Thank you," Nocturnal said excitedly "But this armor does more than just look good: it makes me faster, stronger, less easily killable and also comes with this," Raven said as she summoned the Night Axe.

"You're more prepared for this than I thought you'd be," Meiling said. "Let's see just how prepared."

Meiling went over to a door on one of the walls of the dojo. She opened the door and it led into the butcher shop's freezer. She went into the freezer and was accompanied by a strange humanoid creature with grey skin wearing a buttoned yellow vest with black pants and long black sleeves. But the weirdest thing about the creature was that it had a small rectangle of paper with Chinese characters over its face.

"This is called a rinshi," Meiling began. "It's an undead body that is animate due to the magical talisman over its face."

"Why do you have something like that?"

"For use as a sparring partner. The rest of the time, I keep him in uncle's freezer because it's meant to be used for storing dead meat."

Nocturnal chuckled a bit at Meiling's explanation as the rinshi went over to a nearby weapons rack and grabbed a spear.

"Show me what you've got," Meiling said as the Rinshi approached Nocturnal with its weapon raised. Nocturnal held the Night Axe as a guitar and strummed the strings, sending a loud blast of guitar music at the rinshi that disoriented it. Nocturnal took this opportunity to grab the Night Axe by the neck and swing it at the Chinese zombie's right leg, making it fall to the ground. Nocturnal then raised her axe and struck the rinshi in the stomach. She followed through with another strike and was about to deliver another when Meiling told her to stop.

Meiling stared at Nocturnal in shock for a few seconds before saying a rather long sentence in Mandarin.

"I'm sorry, but I don't speak any of... whatever that just was," Nocturnal said.

"That was amazing," Meiling said, eyes still wide in surprise. "I've never seen such a perfectly executed combination of physical and magical might."

"Thank you," Nocturnal said as she moved the Night Axe to hold as a guitar. "I've been experimenting with my abilities. In addition to the sonic attack, I can also shoot a bolt of lightning from the tip and send out spells that make the target dizzy, break out in laughter from being tickled at many points and make them heavier by manipulating gravity. It would seem my main fighting style involves putting my opponents off-balance and trying to split their heads like a quart of firewood."

"A sound tactic," Meiling said. "Honestly, you might not even me to teach anything."

"I would still like to learn how to fight hand to hand," Nocturnal said. "I want to be prepared in case I don't have my axe. And I'm sure you could show me a few pointers on how to fight in general. Besides, this looks like a great place to practice," Nocturnal said as she looked around the dojo and saw the rinshi on the floor. "Is he going to be okay?"

"He'll be fine," Meiling said. "As long as the talisman isn't destroyed, he'll eventually regenerate from whatever damage you inflicted."

"Cool," Nocturnal said.

"I want to see what else you can do," Meiling said as she went back into the freezer and came out with seven more rinshi.

…..

Authro's notes: sorry for the abrupt ending, but this chapter was running long. Also, if the spells from Raven's guitar sound familiar to any of you Super Sentai fans, that's because I based them on some of the secondary abilities of the Koryugers. I did that partly as an homage and partly because I like the idea of Raven making up for a lack of training and experience by fighting dirty.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's notes: Finelope, who was mentioned in the last chapter will be showing up here. Her name is pronounced fin-el-oh-pe, a combination of fin and Penelope.

…..

The undead creatures went to the nearby weapon racks and armed themselves. One picked up a club with metal studs, two grabbed two long, curved swords, one grabbed a type of hammer with a with a long staff and a metal ball on the end while the other three grabbed spears like the first rinshi Nocturnal fought.

The rinshi charged Nocturnal and she strummed her guitar, shooting a lightning bolt from the tip at the rinshi with the club. The lightning bolt hit, making the rinshi stumble back a bit and cause the two behind him (the hammer wielder and one spear wielder) to run into him. The other rinshi approached Nocturnal and she strummed her guitar to send out a loud blast of guitar music that disoriented the rinshi. Nocturnal swung at a sword wielder's leg to send him to the ground and swung at another rinshi's spear so that it flew out of his hand and smacked into another spear wielder. Nocturnal then swung at the remaining sword wielders head and sent him to the ground. The spear wielder that had been disarmed was getting getting his bearings when Nocturnal hit him with a vertical strike that sent him to the ground as well.

Nocturnal was then hit by a thrust from the spear wielder who'd been delayed earlier. The hit inflicted minor damage and caused some sparks to come from Nocturnal's armor. That strike was followed up by a swing from the hammer wielder that caused more damage and made her stumble backwards a bit. The sword wielder charged and hit Nocturnal in the shoulder, causing minor spark damage. Nocturnal countered by with a kick to his stomach sent him a few feet back.

The hammer wielder charged Nocturnal with his weapon raised over his head and the spear wielder behind him. Nocturnal strummed her guitar and sent out brown sound waves that hit the hammer wielder and made both him and his weapon three times heavier by increasing their gravity. This caused the hammer wielder to stop and fall backwards, right on top of his spear-wielding ally.

The sword-wielding rinshi took another sword swing at Nocturnal that she dodged and countered with an axe swing that sent him to the ground. Some of the other Rinshi from earlier were starting to get up, but Nocturnal knocked them back down with her axe.

"Fairy impressive," Meiling said. "I especially liked the part where you disarmed one of the rinshi and sent his spear flying into another."

"Thank you," Nocturnal said as a flash of black light appeared over her and dispelled both her armor and the Night Axe. She started panting and rubbing the spot where she'd been hit with the round hammer. The spot still hurt a bit but Raven was sure that that would pass. "I just copied stuff I've seen the Kamen Riders do and took any oppurtunites that appeared."

"Kamen Riders?"

"They're warriors that I've been watching through my magic mirror. I made this armor with my magic so I could emulate them."

"Why?"

"Everybody's gotta have a hobby."

They stood in silence for a while as Raven recovered from her 'workout'. In addition to exhaustion and the ache from her bruise, she was also feeling very proud of herself for how he handled her first battle. While she had seen Kamen Riders mow through small armies of guys like the rinshi, that had been after they much more experience that she currently had and several power-ups to boot.

 _I'm off to a fairy good start,_ Raven thought.

After a while, Meiling decided to show Raven some moves and stances for unarmed combat. This went on for over an hour.

"Fariy good," Meiling said. "You can come her whenever you want to practice or use the workout equipment. Don't use the rinshi without supervision though: they're only trained to stop fighting when I tell them to. Otherwise, they'll keep fighting until you or all of them are dead and since they're already dead, my money's on them. "

"Okay," Raven said in understanding.

"Also," Meiling began, "Finelope comes by sometimes to lift weights so you two might run into eachother."

"I'm fine with that," Raven said. They said goodbye and Raven left.

….

While this was going on, Evan had returned to his room after classes ended. He had had a roommate when the school year started, but Evan had politely told him to leave for his own safety so he had a room all to himself. He went over to a table that had a board with a magic circle on it and placed his hands on the board. He began chanting in a magic language. After ten minutes of chanting, he took his arms of the board and a small portal appeared above it. Evan rolled up his sleeve and stuck his right arm through it.

"Something good, something good, something good," Evan said as he moved his hand around hoping to find anything worth taking. He knew his portal was going to close in under a minute, so he grabbed that felt familiar and yanked it out. The portal closed several seconds after he removed his arm.

"Damn it, that was close," Evan said. He then looked at what he had taken: an object that looked like a USB thumb drive with the letter 'B' and a small switch on the front. Evan pressed the switch.

 **Beast** , a mechanical voice called out from the thumb drive device. White lines of energy came from the device and went into Evan, giving him a power surge that enabled him to perform a spell based on what power was contained within the device with almost no expendature from his reserves of energy. Evan swiped his left arm and a claw of white energy appeared, following his swipe from several feet away.

"I'll put this in the maybe pile," Evan said as he went over to a table and opened a large drawer. He tossed the device into two piles of several other ones like it. These devices each contained a fraction of the knowledge of the Earth (an Earth, anyway). They were usually used to turn people into monsters, but Evan had found another way to tap into their power.

The pile was next to a box of metallic coins. These were far from simple currency: the coins were made with alchemy to tap into the vast power of human desire. This usually manifested by tossing one inside a person and creating a monster born from someone's sufficiently powerful desire. Evan hadn't done that yet but was hoping to one day.

In front of the box were two small, round objects with small red buttons of top of them. These contained a great amount of cosmic energy and could be used to turn a person into a monster based on a constellation. Which constellation varied from person to person, depending on what star they were born under.

 _Around a dozen Gaia Memories, several dozen Cell Medals and two Astro Switches,_ Evan thought, going over the drawer's contents. _I've got to hand it to those guys from Foundation X: they are great at creating and co-opting implements of evil. Maybe I should leave a thank you note behind the next time I steal something from them._

Evan picked up one of the Astro Switches and began analyzing it with his magic. He was hoping to get a better understanding of how it worked because since he only had two so far, he needed to make the most of them. He analyzed the switch for almost half an hour, needing to stop because his magic was running low from sustained exertion. It had been worth it though because he had made some progress in getting a complete picture of how Astro Switches worked. He drank a magic restoring potion he kept around and sat down.

A few minutes later, his mirror phone rang. He looked at it and saw that he was being called by his secret kind-of-girlfriend, Finelope.

"Hey sweetness," Evan said as he answered.

"Hey," Finelope replied. "I just called to say that I'm running a little a late and it will be a while longer before I come see you."

"Did something happen?"

"I got held up leaving school when classes ended so I got to my favorite burger place behind the rest of the after school rush. I'm still in line right now. Also, Sparrow Hood is here and looking like he needs to have some air poked out of the over-inflated balloon that is his ego, so I have to arm wrestle him after I eat. It's time for me to order now. Yeah, I'll have two double cheeseburgers, two orders of onion rings and two milkshakes: one chocolate, one butterscotch. Do you want anything?"

"I'd like one single cheeseburger with onions, no pickles and a chocolate shake," Evan said and Finelope relayed his order. "I'll see you soon."

They hung up after that. About twenty minutes later, Evan received a hext message from Finelope saying that she was at the spot where Evan had set up a teleportation warp point in an alley next to an abandoned store. He had done this so he could instantaneously travel between his room and the village but now he could use it to discreetly move Finelope into his room so they could maintain the secrecy of their relationship. He charged his magic and activated the teleportation spell, transporting Finelope into his room.

Finelope was a rather heavy-set girl. She had a potbelly attached to a thick, red fish tail, thick arms that contained some muscle from her days working on her dad's kelp farm and a plump face with a bit of a double chin. She had broad shoulders for a girl, C-cup breasts, long, sea-foam green hair that went down to where her tail began and was wearing an ocean blue top with shell patterns on it. She was sitting on a rather ordinary looking wheelchair with two bags on the sides that was upholstered with a flying carpet so that it could move on its own and hover over stair cases. Evan came up behind Finelope, wrapped his arms around her thick mid-section and began kissing her neck.

"It's wonderful to see you, my little manatee," Evan said in between kisses, using his nickname for her that she liked despite it comparing her to an animal with few redeeming qualities.

"And it's wonderful to see you too," Finelope said, greatly enjoying the affection she was receiving. At least until he moved his left arm to cup one of her breasts. "Slow down honey," Finelope said as she knocked his arm away. "You're going pretty fast, don't you think?"

"No," Evan answered flatly as Finelope broke off their physical contact and turned to face him.

"I just got here and you go for my tits in under two minutes," she said in a slightly frustrated tone. "And you wonder why I'm the only girl that likes you."

"But you have such amazing tits," Evan said.

"True," Finelope said in an understanding tone as she thought about what she'd say next. "We can pick up where we left off later. Right now, I want to talk to you about something. Also, you have this," Finelope said as she reached into of the wheelchair's and pulled out a bag containing the order she had relayed for Evan at the burger joint.

Evan went to the desk in the room, sat down on the chair so that he faced the large mermaid and bit into his burger. He continued eating for a while before Finelope spoke up.

"I want to talk to you about Duchess," she began. "I am grateful for all the stuff you've done to her for me, but it's starting to get to the point where it's not funny anymore and I want you to stop."

 _It's still pretty funny to me_ , Evan thought as he sipped from his shake. He continued sippping as he thought of his response. He was thinking of making the argument that while he was going after Duchess, other, less deserving people were safe from his form of amusement. He quickly decided against that on the grounds that that made him look like a sadistic jackass (which he was, but Finelope didn't need to be reminded of that). There was also the matter of how he was sort-of friends with Duchess's friend, Faybelle Thorn, and going after Duchess as brutally and consistently as had been lately was straining relations with the future dark fairy. His mom and Faybelle's had been friends since before he had been born so they met each other a lot growing up. That, combined with a mutual eagerness for their roles as villains, led to them becoming friends of a sort.

"Okay, I'll stop going after Duchess if that's what you want," Evan said. "So how badly did you beat Sparrow?" he asked as he began finishing off his burger.

"He put up a good fight for like, five seconds but then I creamed him," Finelope said with a grin.

Evan finished his shake and the two of them started making out. They continued like that for over an hour, only breaking apart to take in oxygen before continuing. Finelope hugged his head into her breasts, which he enjoyed immensely.

"This has been fun, Evan," Finelope said she let go of his head, "but I need to go back to my room and now is the best time to do it since there's so few people in the halls for me to run into."

"I can help with that," Evan said as he went over to his drawer of stolen items and grabbed a Gaia Memory that he showed to Finelope.

"What's that?" She asked.

"Better for me to show you," evan said as he clicked the Memory's button.

 **Invisible**

Lines of white energy went from the Memory into Evan's arm. He raised his other arm and casted a spell on Finelope that turned her invisible.

"That should keep you unseen for the next ten minutes," Evan explained.

"Coooooool," Finelope said. "See you later."

Finelope went to the door and left.

...

Much later that night, Finelope was in her room about to get ready for bed when her roommate Michigo came through the door.

"No one's here right?" Michigo asked.

"You're clear," Finelope answered.

Michigo went over to her side of their room and undid the strap around her kimono. She removed the dress and revealed Meiling's well-toned body in her underwear. She went over to a vanity and removed 'Michigo's' white makeup and wig, turning herself back into Meiling.

"So how was your day?" Finelope asked.

"Great," Meiling said. "I made a new friend. Do you know Raven Queen?"

"I know of her."

"She'll be coming to the dojo from now. If you come there and see someone in a weird black and silver suit of armor that has large purple eyes, that's her."

"And just when I thought things with you couldn't get any weirder," Finelope said in a slightly tired tone. "Why'd you tell Raven about the dojo?"

"It's my way of returning a favor," Meiling replied. "She has agreed to help me with something - or rather, she's agreed to help Michigo with something - should the need arise and in return, she wanted to know if Michigo knew of anyone who could teach her how to fight, so I decided to introduce her to myself."

"What is she going to help you with?" Finelope asked. There was an awkward silence as Meiling contemplated her response.

"All you need to know," the well-toned asian girl began, "is that Raven will only help me if the situating necessitates it and that I care about you a great deal."

"So you have enlisted her against Evan," Finelope said with a hint of frustration.

"Yes," Meiling admitted. "But only if he hurts you in some way. If he doesn't start anything, Raven and I won't finish it. You have my word."

"The word of someone's who lying to the whole school about who she really is," Finelope said dismissively.

"You know that's not up to me," Meiling shot back with a stern look.

"Oh right," Finelope said sheepishly. "I'm sorry about that."

"Apology accepted," Meiling said. "And I'm only making plans to exact vengeance on Evan because as the only person in the school I can be open with about who I really am, your friendship means so much to me."

Finelope rode her chair up to Meiling with her arms open, signaling that she wanted to hug her. "Come on," she said.

Meiling leaned in from the edge of Finelope's wheelchair and the two girls hugged.


	4. Chapter 4

Two days later, Raven entered the dojo. Meiling was there, using a short sword with a straight blade against three spear-wielding rinshi, two of which were on the ground. She parried a spear thrust from the last rinshi away with her sword and struck it in the torso with her elbow. She followed through with two sword slashes and a kick that sent the remaining rinshi to the ground with its comrades. Raven applauded Meiling's fighting skills.

"Thank you, thank you," Meiling said as she took a bow and breathed heavily. "That last workout took a lot out of me. I'm going to need to take a break for a while before we go over anything."

"That's fine," Raven said as she summoned the Nocturnal Driver around her waist and her right hand glowed with her magic. "Henshin," Raven cried out as she transformed into Kamen Rider Nocturnal.

Once changed, Nocturnal summoned the Night Axe and began taking practice swings with it and doing her best to quickly change between holding it in what she had started calling 'Axe mode' and 'guitar mode'. After about fifteen minutes of practice, Finelope came in on her wheelchair.

"You must think this is pretty weird," Nocturnal said to the plus-sized mermaid, expecting her to be surprised about a mysterious person in strange armor being in the dojo.

"Not really, Raven," Finelope said. "I was told about you and your armor. It looks really cool on you."

"Thanks," Notcurnal said. "And I just want to say that you are really good at burger scarfing and arm wrestling and I hope you continue to show up the guys at both those things."

"Will do," Finelope said with a grin as she rode over to a barbell set. She attached four 25-pound weights to each end of the metal rod, then got off of her wheelchair and laid down on the raised mat. "Can you spot me?" Finelope asked Nocturnal.

"I'll try," Nocturnal said nervously as she walked over to the plus-sized mermaid. Finelope grabbed the barbell and began doing reps. She did twelve reps before resting the barbell against stands. "Holy crap."

"Thank you," Finelope said as she sat up. "A few more weeks of that, and maybe I can finally beat Daring at arm wrestling."

…..

The next day, Raven returned to the dojo and saw Meiling there lifting weights.

"Hey," Raven greeted as she walked over to her.

"Hey," Meiling greeted back.

"There's something I've wanting to talk to you about."

"What's that?"

"I've really liked practicing here and what you've showed me about fighting. And I'm really grateful to Michigo for introducing us. What would you say to the three of us getting together to do something sometime?"

 _uh oh,_ Meiling thought, hoping she could explain away how Raven's proposal was impossible without giving away too much.

"I'm afraid that's going to be very unlikely to happen, Raven," Meiling began. "Michigo and I are both very busy people. It will probably be months before a compatible opening in our schedules presents itself."

 _And hopefully by then, you'll have forgotten about this,_ Meiling mentally added.

"All right," Raven said, putting on a front that she accepted that answer for now. "How do you two know eachother anyway?"

"My father works as a landscaper for her mother's palace," Meiling lied.

"Your father is Chinese, right?"

"Yes."

"And he works for a Japanese queen?"

Meiling paused for a second. She didn't expect Raven to notice the difference between Chinese and Japanese names and was now caught off-gaurd. It took her a few seconds to come up with suitable explanation.

"My mother is Chinese," Meiling said. "I'm half-Chinese, half-Japanese." There was an awkward silence for the next ten seconds. _I don't think she's buying it_ , Meiling thought.

 _I'm not buying it_ , Raven thought but decided to not press the matter right now and instead, to move on to another topic.

"You and Michigo really do look a lot alike," Raven said. "And don't tell me that's it's because you're both Asain. If it wasn't for that makeup Michigo wears all the time, you two could be twins."

There was yet another awkward silence as Raven looked at Meling with an accusatory glance.

"Just cut to the chase, Raven," Meiling said. "You suspect me of something, so why don't you tell me what it is."

"I think you and Michigo are actually the same person," Raven said.

"That's ridiculous," Meiling said with feigned indignation. "For one thing, does this look like the bicep of a princess?" Meiling then flexed her arm to show off her muscle.

"It might, considering that the dress Michigo wears covers her from ankle to neck," Raven counters. "Also, it took you a long time to tell me about your mixed Asian heritage. And I get the feeling that if I started describing you to the residents of Book End's Asian community, no one would know who I'm talking about, which would be weird if you really do live and work here with your uncle. Should I test that?"

Meiling took a deep breath as she prepared herself to share everything with Raven.

"There's no need to do that, Raven," Meiling said. "It's as you think: Michigo and I are the same person."

"I love it when I'm right," Raven said with a smile that then vanished. "But who are you really? And why the deception?"

"I will get to that in time, but first let me properly introduce myself to you," Meiling said as she held out her hand. "I am Fa Meiling, daughter of Fa Mulan, China's first and greatest female warrior."

"Pleased to meet you, again," Raven said as she shook Meiling's hand. "So they have female warriors were you from?"

"A few, but it's not that common," Meiling answered. "It's also beside the subject. This all started several months ago, when Headmaster Grimm sent out invitations to Asian fairy-teens to come to Ever After High. Only me and about five other people were interested. Grimm was so desperate to improve the school's ethnic diversity that he said I could come to this school under the assumed identity of Michigo, who turned down his invitation, to conceal the highly subversive nature of my story."

"Highly subversive in what way?" Raven asked.

"The short version," Meiling began, "is that my mother joined the army disguised as a man to save her father from a draft. She maintained the masquerade for twelve years, during which time she won many battles and earned great respect. So much so that when she revealed herself as a woman, no one cared about the deception."

"I see what you mean about highly subversive," Raven said. "Your mom's story goes against this school's notions of gender roles and blind loyalty to tradition. But why would you agree to come to this school if it meant concealing your identity?"

"Three reasons," Meiling said. "One, with this being his school, everyone goes to EA High under Grimm's conditions: he just decided to make a few extra conditions for me. Two, despite significant differences, the exercise in subterfuge will give me great experience for when I join the army disguised as a man. Three, I think it's pretty confusing that I want to follow the tradition of my mother's story which is about defying tradition and understand why Grimm would want to spare others such confusion. I actually gave myself a small headache once thinking about that. I've since decided that I only want to follow my mother's story out of familial pride."

 _This is so cool,_ Raven thought. She didn't care about being initially lied to because Meiling had a pretty good reason for that. More importantly, Raven was happy to learn that she had been receiving combat tips from the daughter of such an accomplished woman warrior.

When Raven had first thought about emulating the Kamen Riders, she had doubts about doing because of the world of Ever After's traditional values regarding gender roles and the fact that the Kamen Riders were overwhelmingly male. She decided to ignore these doubts and give herself rider powers anyway, but hearing about a successful female warrior from an Asian culture was highly encouraging.

"I'm glad there's no hard feelings," Meiling said, telling from Raven's wide grin that she was not upset about her deception. "Let's continue with your training."

Raven's grin faded as the two of them began going over forms and practice blows to help develop Raven's skill with hand-to-hand fighting.

...

Evan had gone to his room to take more things from Foundation X. He had put his hand on the board, opened another portal and stuck his hand through. He felt around took out a handful of Cell Medals then put his hand back in. After feeling around for a bit more, he took a Gaia Memory and removed his hand from the portal, which closed about fifteen seconds later.

 _Strange_ , Evan thought. _The portal stayed open for over twice as long compared to when I did this the other day. There has to be a reason for this._

Evan began thinking of theories to explain why the portal stayed open so long. Three minutes later, his eyes widened in shock as one theory occurred to him.

"This is bad," Evan said in a slightly panicked tone, then took a few deep breaths and regained his calm.

 _I need more information_ , Evan thought. _Faebelle can help me with that. Or she can, once she's done with cheerhexing practice at five. Hopefully the universe won't end until then. If it does, I'll let her know that it's her fault. And while I'm waiting on Faebelle, I might as well see what my new Gaia Memory does._ Evan held up the Memory and pressed the button.

 **Anomalocaris**

Orange beams of energy went from the memory into Evan's arm. Evan conjured seven spike made from what looked to be the same kind of orange energy. He knew that if he wanted to, he shoot out the spikes at a pretty good speed. But he didn't want to damage anything in his room, so he didn't do that.

This will probably come in handy for whatever comes next, he thought. He then took out his mirror phone and called Finelope. She picked up after two rings.

"Hey sweetness," Evan said.

"Hey," Finelope said.

"Is there any chance you can meet me around 5?" Evan asked.

"Sure," Finelope said. "I'll go to our usual spot and hext you when I get there."

"Hexcellent," Evan said. He had a plan in mind for how Finelope might be able to help with what might be coming and for the sake of expediency, wanted to explain the situation to them both at the same time. The two girls had bad history with each other: Faebelle didn't like Finelope because she was fat while Finelope thought that Faebelle was a bitch and was not timid about sharing that opinion. Faebelle knew about Evan and Finelope but kept it to herself due to her and Evan being kind-of-friends for almost half their lives.

 _Hopefully I can keep them from killing each other long enough to explain the seriousness of the situation_ , Evan thought. _Damn: you know things are getting F#^ked when I'm the one that has to play peacekeeper._

...

After getting her workout in, Finelope left the dojo and headed for the alley in Book End that was connected to Evan's room. She got there and hexted him that she was ready to be teleported. She was sent into Evan's room and was not pleased to see Faebelle standing beside him.

"You," Finelope said while glaring at Faebelle. She then turned to Evan. "What is she doing here?"

"I'm wondering the same thing about you, you walrus of a mermaid," Faebelle said with disdain, then turned to Evan. "Seriously: what the hex is going on here?"

"That's a long story. The short version," Evan began, "is that I have been opening small portals to another dimension. I opened one after classes today and it stayed open for twice as long as the one I opened just three days ago. Why do you think that is?"

"Something's coming," Faebelle said with a hint of dread. "It's trying to come into this world through a rather 'brute force' method of extra-dimensional travel and it's efforts are weakening the dimensional fabric around this world."

"Hexactly," Evan said. "And I need you to help me find out what it is."

"How am I supposed to that?" Faebelle asked, then turned to Finelope. "And what does this have to do with her?"

"I'll get to that soon," Evan said. "But first we need a change of scenery."

Evan grabbed both girls by the wrists and teleported them all to a pitch-black room. Evan raised his hands and casted a few floating orbs of light around them, revealing that they were inside a cave with no exit in sight. Evan then walked over to a table, grabbed a bottle of magic restoring portion and drank its contents in one gulp.

"Ah, that's good magic," Evan said as he felt his magic being re-energized.

"You're wearing thin on my patience, Evan," Faebelle with contained rage.

"Mine too," Finelope said. "Where the hex are we?"

"Inside a cave deep within the Dark Forest," Evan said. "I keep some stuff here that's too big or dangerous to have at my dorm room: like him."

Evan pointed to behind the girls. They turned around and saw what looked like a humanoid cat creature with blue fur, a large white stomach with yellow feet and hands that had short claws. It had a yellow face and was wearing a the top of a blue cat's head on it's own and two arms over it's shoulders onto its chest. It was sleeping while standing up. This was the Tabby Yummie.

"What the crap?" Finelope exclaimed as she turned to face Evan.

"You have nothing to worry about," Evan said. "I've got him in a suspended animation spell until I need him."

"Need him for what?" Finelope asked.

"I haven't decided yet," Evan said, then had a devilish grin. "But I'm sure I'll think of something."

The psychopath and the plus-sized mermaid were interrupted by the sound of a cat meowing. Faebelle and Finelope turned towards the sound and saw an obese, orange cat come towards them.

"Girls, say hi to Lil' Fatty," Evan said. "Fatty, these are the girls."

"What is it with you and fat, gross things?" Faebelle asked disdainfully while Finelope petted the cat.

"Finelope's not gross," Evan said. "And as for Lil' Fattie, there's a funny story behind that. He was originally a starving stray that I found, took in and used his desire to eat as much food as he possibly could to make Terry," Evan finished by pointing at the cat creature they noticed earlier.

Faebelle took a breath and briefly rubbed her forehead, the continuing onslaught of weirdness beginning to take its strain on her.

"Two things," she said. "First: how did Fatty help you make that? Second: why is it called Terry?"

"In that order," Evan started, "I used a special type of coin to create Terry out of Fatty's desire and the name is short for Terry the tabby."

Evan left out the part about how as Fatty satiated his desire for food, Terry (or rather, what would become Terry) consumed him from the inside out and then took on its current form. Once Evan had gotten a Yummie to form from Fatty's desire, he removed Fatty from inside Terry because he had come to like Fatty and was also hoping to use him as a test subject for something else if the need came up.

"On to why we came here," Evan said as he went over to a large crystal ball that was over three feet in diameter, standing on a pedestal near a cave wall. "I don't have enough magical energy to cast a sufficiently powerful scrying spell on this crystal ball. I need your help for that, Faebelle."

"And why should I help you," Faebelle said scornfully. "Between 'porting me over here and freaking me out with Terry, I'm not feeling very cooperative."

"Please, Faebelle," Evan began. "This is serious."

"It must be: you just said please," Faebelle said in shock. She thought things over for the next thirty seconds. "I'll help you with the spell: but only because I want to know what's coming."

Evan and Faebelle stood on opposite sides of the ball and channelled their magic into it, trying to figure out what was coming. The ball showed them images of several people, most of them Asian, dressed in white clothes that looked to a combination of a lab coat and business suit.

"Oh shit: they found me," Evan said in panic.

"Who are they and what do they want with you?" Finelope asked irately.

"They are from a group called Foundation X," Evan said. "I've been stealing implements of evil from them."

"So they want revenge on you," Faebelle said.

"Maybe," Evan said. "Let's find out for sure."

Evan and Faebelle put more magic into the ball as they focused on wanting to know why Foundation X wanted to come to their world. The ball showed them people from Book End and Ever After High kneeling before some members of Foundation X while other members inspected a collection of what looked to be magical artifacts.

"Ah, conquest and plunder," Evan said in understanding. "Rather unoriginal motives for wanting to go someplace new."

"Can't go wrong with the classics," Faebelle said in an upbeat tone.

"But one thing doesn't make sense," Evan said. "I recognized some of the people the ball has shown us as being from the specific cell of Foundation X that I've been stealing from. That can't be a coincidence." There was silence for a while as Evan thought over some things. "I want to know how they're coming here."

Once again, Evan and Faebelle channeled their magic into the ball for their query. The ball showed them a Gaia Memory with the letter 'G' on it. A disembodied hand grabbed the Memory from behind and pressed it's button.

 **Gateway**

"That looks just like the thing you used to turn me invisible," Finelope said. "You stole that from them."

Evan nodded yes as the ball showed the Gateway Memory being inserted into a large machine that had two pylons to either side. A portal opened in front of the pylons.

"I've never heard of anyone using a machine to create extra-dimensional portals," Faebelle said.

"Foundation X does a lot of stuff you've never heard of," Evan answered. "And this cell dabbles in most of it. I choose this one for its work with Gaia Memories, Cell Medals and Astro Switches but it looks like they've also been looking into extra-dimensional travel."

"I only understood about half of what you said," Finelope said.

"I'll explain more later," Evan said. The image of the machine in the ball shrunk and was surrounded by blackness. A thin, red string came from the machine and went upwards. The string ended at an open portal with Evan on the other end.

"What's that mean?" Finelope asked.

"When I stole from Foundation X," Evan began, "I created a path of least resistance for their machine to follow back to this world."

"So you are the reason they're coming here," Faebelle said.

"Yes," Evan admitted. "And I need to clean up this mess before Headmaster Grimm or anyone over him finds that out. Or worse: Foundation X finds out that I've been stealing from them and decides to enact whatever form of justice they feel is appropriate. Will you two me?"

"I will," Finelope said. "Though I'm not sure what I can do to help."

"I've got something in mind," Evan said as he went over to small box some distance from the large crystal ball and motioned for Finelope to follow him. He opened the box and revealed that it contained a large rifle that had wood for the stock and a curved opening meant to go over someone's shoulder.

"What is that?" Finelope asked.

"It's called a spell rifle," Evan said. "An old pet project of my mother's. Magic is channeled into these special capsules and loaded into here," Evan pointed to a slot on the top of the rifle, "you pull this thing," Evan pointed to the trigger, "and green energy bolts shoot out this end," he finished pointing at the end of the barrel.

"Cool," Finelope said.

"Oh it is," Evan agreed. "Or it would be if the thing wasn't so heavy. I'm hoping that won't be a problem for you."

"Let's find out," Finelope said enthusiastically. Evan telekinetically lifted the rifle up and put it in Finelope's arms. The rifle was a little heavy for her but not very much. She put it on top of her right shoulder, held up the barrel with her hand and practiced aiming it. "Yeah, this will work great."

"Perfect," Evan said jubilantly and then turned to Faebelle. "And what about you?"

"I'll help, but I'm not much of a fighter," Faebelle said. "Also, you'll owe me."

"I think I have something that can help with both those things," Evan said with a grin. "But we're going to need other people to help with this."

"Do you have anyone in mind?" Faebelle asked.

"One person: Raven Queen," Evan said.

….

Author's notes: so that's it for this story. The follow-up will be in the crossover section with Kamen Rider. It will be up next month.


End file.
